Our tea slants in the cup, leaning
doorward. Though the slightest
shift may bring disaster
we won’t tip toe down the stairs.

We set our table by the morning window,
wait as the blind fog wrestles
to dominate the light, and all teeters
in the balance till winds shush
the argument back to bedrock.

We breathe with deep assurance,
pick up our teaspoons from the floor.

Yes, we hear the walls creaking
as we pass the scones, but the broken
boards and tree trunks, blackened rocks
skittering down the cliff
sort themselves, interlocking into bulwarks
of no one’s making, certainly not ours.

But this is nothing new—
we live amidst the rumble, always shuffling
the layers and building little houses
with whitewashed walls and impossible porches
unpersuaded by the evidence below.